Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 2 is a 2004 American superhero film co-produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures. The film was directed by Sam Raimi and written by Alvin Sargent from a story by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Michael Chabon. A sequel to the 2002 film Spider-Man, it is the second installment in the ''Spider-Man'' film series based on the fictional Marvel Comics character of the same name. Gregory Smith stars as Peter Parker / Spider-Man, alongside Kirsten Dunst, Ryan Merriman, Alfred Molina, and Rosemary Harris. Set two years after the events of Spider-Man, the film finds Peter Parker struggling to manage both his personal life and his duties as Spider-Man, which affects his civilian life dramatically. Meanwhile, Dr. Otto Octavius becomes a diabolical villain after a failed experiment and leaves him neurologically fused to mechanical tentacles. Spider-Man must stop him from successfully recreating the experiment, which threatens to blow up the city, while dealing with a subconscious desire to stop being Spider-Man that is stripping him of his powers. Principal photography began in April 2003 in New York City. Spider-Man 2 was released in both conventional and IMAX theaters on June 30, 2004, and grossed $783 million worldwide, becoming the third highest-grossing film of the year. It won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and was also nominated for Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing; it also received five awards at the Saturn Awards, including Best Fantasy Film and Best Director for Raimi. It is considered as one of the most influential and best superhero films of all-time. Its success led to Spider-Man 3 (2007). Plot Two years after Gwen Stacy and Norman Osborn's death, Peter Parker, secretly the superhero Spider-Man, is estranged from both love interest Mary Jane Watson and best friend Harry Osborn and discovers that his aunt May is facing eviction. He finds himself suffering temporary, but recurring losses of his powers, often in life-threatening situations. Harry, now head of Oscorp's genetic and scientific research division, is sponsoring a fusion power project by nuclear scientist Otto Octavius, who befriends and mentors Peter. While handling hazardous materials, Octavius wears a harness of powerful robotic tentacle arms with artificial intelligence. During a public demonstration that Peter and Harry attend, a power spike causes the fusion reactor to destabilize. Octavius refuses to shut down the reactor, which goes critical – burning the inhibitor chip blocking the arms from his nervous system. Peter, as Spider-Man, shuts the experiment down, destroying it in the process. At a hospital, doctors prepare to surgically remove Octavius' harness. Without the inhibitor chip, the arms have developed sentience and murder most of them. Upon regaining consciousness and seeing the carnage, Octavius escapes and takes refuge at a harbor. Becoming increasingly influenced by the arms' AI, he decides to re-try his experiment. He robs a bank to fund a second experiment. Peter and May coincidentally are there, and Octavius takes May hostage. Peter rescues her, but Octavius flees with the stolen money. The Daily Bugle subsequently dubs the scientist Doctor Octopus. Mary Jane grows upset over Peter constantly breaking dates in order to fight crime, causing them to separate. Peter suffers an emotional breakdown over his inability to balance his life and loses his powers. He abandons his Spider-Man identity, returns to his normal life, and attempts to reconcile with Mary Jane. A garbageman brings Peter's Spider-Man costume to Jameson, who takes credit for driving Spider-Man into hiding. Peter tells May the truth behind his uncle Ben's death and how he is responsible. May forgives him, but the rise in New York City crime rates worries Peter. Requiring the isotope tritium to fuel his reactor, Octavius visits Harry to demand it. Harry agrees in exchange for Spider-Man, whom he believes is responsible for Norman's death. He tells Octavius to seek Peter, who Harry believes is friends with Spider-Man, but tells Octavius not to harm him. Octavius locates Peter, tells him to find Spider-Man, and captures Mary Jane. Her endangerment leads to Peter's powers resurrecting. As Jameson admits that he was wrong about Spider-Man, Peter steals his costume back from the Bugle and goes after Octavius. As Peter battles Octavius, they fall onto a New York City Subway train. Octavius sabotages the controls and leaves Peter to save the passengers, which he does at a great physical toll. When he faints from exhaustion, the grateful passengers save him from falling and bring him into the train, seeing his unmasked face but promising to keep their knowledge hidden. In vain, they try to protect him when Octavius returns to capture Peter, whom Octavius delivers to Harry. After giving Octavius the tritium, Harry prepares to kill Spider-Man, only to be shocked to see Peter under the mask. Peter convinces Harry to direct him to Octavius' lair, as bigger things are at stake. As Peter arrives at the doctor's waterfront laboratory and attempts to rescue Mary Jane discreetly, Octavius discovers him, and they battle as the nuclear reaction swells. Peter ultimately subdues Octavius, reveals his identity, and persuades Octavius to let his dream go for the greater good. Octavius commands the tentacles to obey him, and gives his life to destroy the experiment. Mary Jane sees Peter's true identity and feelings. Harry is visited by a vision of his father in a mirror, pleading for Harry to avenge his death. Harry shatters the mirror, inadvertently revealing a secret room containing prototypes of the Green Goblin's equipment. Cast and characters * Gregory Smith as Peter Parker / Spider-Man * Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson * Ryan Merriman as Harry Osborn * Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus * Rosemary Harris as May Parker * J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson * Dylan Baker as Dr. Curt Connors Willem Dafoe reprises his role as Norman Osborn / Green Goblin at the end of the film as a hallucination of his son Harry. Dafoe came up with the idea during promotion for Spider-Man, which he compared to King Hamlet haunting his son to avenge him. Aasif Mandvi portrays Mr. Aziz, the owner of Joe's Pizza, where Peter used to work. Bruce Campbell plays an obnoxious usher who denies Peter access to Mary Jane's play when he is late. Spider-Man's co-creator Stan Lee makes a cameo as a man on the street who saves a woman from falling debris during a battle between Spider-Man and Doc Ock. Evil Dead II co-writer Scott Spiegel portrays as a man who attempts to eat some pizza Spider-Man is delivering, only to have it webbed from his hands. Joel McHale plays the teller in the bank who refuses Aunt May's loan. Hal Sparks appears as the elevator passenger who has a conversation with Spidey. Donnell Rawlings makes a cameo as a New Yorker who exclaims that Spider-Man stole the pizza. Joey Diaz plays a train passenger who tells Doctor Octopus that he has to get past him to get to Spider-Man. Vanessa Ferlito plays one of Mary Jane's co-stars. Joy Bryant appears as a spectator that witnesses Spider-Man in action. John Landis plays one of the doctors who operates on Doctor Octopus. Johnny Tri Nguyen appears as a stunt performer. Production Development .]] Immediately after finishing Spider-Man, director Sam Raimi with help from James Keltie segued into directing a sequel. In April 2002, Sony hired Alfred Gough and Miles Millar to write a script with Doctor Octopus, the Lizard, and Black Cat as the villains. On May 8, 2002, following Spider-Man record-breaking $115 million opening weekend, Marvel Studios announced a sequel for 2004. Entitled The Amazing Spider-Man, after the character's main comic book title, the film was given a budget of $200 million and aimed for a release date of May 7, 2004. The following month, David Koepp was added to co-write with Gough and Millar. In September 2002, Michael Chabon was hired to rewrite. His draft had a younger Doc Ock, who becomes infatuated with Mary Jane. His mechanical limbs use endorphins to counteract the pain of being attached to his body, which he enjoys. When he injures two muggers on a date, this horrifies Mary Jane and in the resulting battle with Spider-Man his tentacles are fused together, and the fusion begins to kill him. In the script, Octavius is the creator of the genetically-altered spider from the first film and gives Peter an antidote to remove his powers: this means when Octavius is dying with his tentacles, he wants to extract Spider-Man's spine to save himself. This leads to an alliance with Harry (a detail which made it into the finished film). Beforehand, Harry and the Daily Bugle put a $10 million price on Spider-Man's head, causing the city's citizens to turn against him. Producer Avi Arad rejected the love triangle angle on O and found Harry putting a price on Spider-Man's head unsubtle. Raimi sifted through the previous drafts by Gough, Millar, Koepp, and Chabon, picking what he liked with screenwriter Alvin Sargent. He felt that thematically the film had to explore Peter's conflict with his personal wants against his responsibility, exploring the positives and negatives of his chosen path, and how he ultimately decides that he can be happy as a heroic figure. Raimi stated the story was partly influenced by Superman II, which also explored the titular hero giving up his responsibilities. The story is mainly taken from The Amazing Spider-Man No. 50, "Spider-Man No More!" It was decided that Doctor Octopus would be kept as the villain, as he was both a visually interesting villain who was a physical match for Spider-Man, and a sympathetic figure with humanity, accompanied by the fact that the character had been repeatedly considered as a villain for the first film over the course of its 15-year development. Raimi changed much of the character's backstory, however, adding the idea of Otto Octavius being a hero of Peter, and how their conflict was about trying to rescue him from his demons rather than kill him. Filming Spider-Man 2 was shot on over one hundred sets and locations, beginning with a pre-shoot on the Loop in Chicago for two days in November 2002. The crew acquired a train of 2200 series cars, placing sixteen cameras for background shots of Spider-Man and Doc Ock's train fight. Principal photography began on April 12, 2003 in New York City. The crew moved on May 13 to Los Angeles, shooting on ten major sets created by production designer Neil Spisak. Filming was put on hiatus for eight weeks, in order to build Doc Ock's pier lair. It had been Spisak's idea to use a collapsed pier as Ock's lair, reflecting an exploded version of the previous lab and representing how Octavius' life had collapsed and grown more monstrous, evoking the cinema of Fritz Lang and the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Filming then resumed on that set, having taken fifteen weeks to build. It was 60 feet (18 m) by 120 feet (37 m) long, and 40 feet (12 m) high, and a quarter-scale miniature was also built for the finale as it collapses. Filming was still going after Christmas 2003. A camera system called the Spydercam was used to allow filmmakers to express more of Spider-Man's world view, at times dropping fifty stories and with shot lengths of just over 2,400 feet (730 m) in New York or 3,200 feet (980 m) in Los Angeles. For some shots, the camera would shoot at six frames per second for a faster playback increasing the sense of speed. Shots using the Spydercam were pre-planned in digital versions of cities, and the camera's movement was controlled with motion control, making it highly cost-effective. The camera system was only used in the previous film for the final shot. Visual effects Although roughly the same, costume designer James Acheson made numerous subtle changes to Spider-Man's costume. The colors were made richer and bolder, the spider emblem was given more elegant lines and enlarged, the eye-lenses were somewhat smaller, and the muscle suit underneath was made into pieces, to give a better sense of movement. The helmet Smith wore under his mask was also improved, with better movement for the false jaw and magnetic eyepieces, which were easier to remove. To create Doctor Octopus' mechanical tentacles, Edge FX was hired to create a corset, a metal and rubber girdle, a rubber spine and four foam rubber tentacles which were 8 feet (2.4 m) long, which altogether weighed 100 pounds (45 kg). The claws of each tentacle, which were dubbed "death flowers", were controlled by a single puppeteer in a chair. Each tentacle was controlled by four people, who rehearsed every scene with Molina to give a natural sense of movement as if the tentacles were moving due to Octavius' muscle movement. Onset, Molina referred to his tentacles as "Larry", "Harry", "Moe" and "Flo", with "Flo" being the top-right tentacle which performed the most work. Edge FX was only hired to do scenes where Octavius carries his tentacles. CGI was used for when the tentacles carry Octavius: a 20 ft (6.1 m) high rig held Molina to glide through his surroundings, with CG tentacles added later. The CG versions were scanned straight from the practical ones. However, using the practical versions was always preferred to save money, and each scene was always filmed first with Edge FX's creations to see if CGI was truly necessary. Completing the illusion, the sound designers chose not to use servo sound effects, feeling it would rob the tentacles of the sense that they were part of Octavius' body, and instead used motorcycle chains and piano wires. Release Home media The film was initially released on VHS and DVD on November 30, 2004, in the United States, while the DVD and VHS were released in Australia on November 17, 2004. The DVD was available in both anamorphic widescreen and Pan-and-scan "fullscreen", as well as a Superbit edition and in a box-set with the first film. There was also a collector's DVD gift set including a reprint of The Amazing Spider-Man #50. The DVD and VHS releases sold 12,404,597 units and grossed $185,260,344 in the United States. The film was released on Blu-ray in October 2007 as a part of the Spider-Man: The High Definition Trilogy box set. It was also released separately on Blu-ray in November 2010 as well as the previous film including both the theatrical release and the 2.1 extended cut. ''Spider-Man 2.1'' (2007) An extended cut of the film, entitled Spider-Man 2.1, was released on DVD and Blu-ray on April 17, 2007, and on October 30, 2007. The cut included eight minutes of new footage, with new special features not included in the original release, as well as a sneak preview of the then-upcoming Spider-Man 3. The cut featured 3 new, 1 alternate, and 11 extended scenes, and a featurette: "Inside Spider-Man 2.1", detailing the making of the cut. A similar cut aired on January 2, 2007, on the FX channel with an exclusive sneak preview for Spider-Man 3. Reception Box office Spider-Man 2 grossed $373.6 million in the United States and Canada and $410.2 million in other territories for a total worldwide gross of $783.8 million, against a production budget of $200 million. Spider-Man 2 opened in the United States on June 30, 2004 and grossed $40.4 million in its first day; this broke the first film's opening day record of $39.4 million until it was surpassed a year later by Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith ($50.0 million). The film also broke The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King s record ($34.5 million) for the highest-grossing Wednesday of all time. It held the Wednesday record for three years until it was topped by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ($44.2 million). Its Friday-to-Sunday gross reached a total of $88.2 million, which was the highest Independence Day weekend, breaking Men in Black II s record ($52.1 million), until it was broken seven years later by Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($97.9 million). In its first six days, the film had grossed over $180 million. The film also eventually went on to gross $373.5 million, becoming 2004's second-highest-grossing film, behind Shrek 2. Spider-Man 2 is the 28th highest-grossing film in the U.S. and Canada and sold an estimated 60,158,700 tickets in the US. Critical response Coming soon Awards and nominations Spider-Man 2 won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, and was nominated for Best Sound Mixing (Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell, Jeffrey J. Haboush, and Joseph Geisinger) and Best Sound Editing, but lost to Ray and The Incredibles, respectively. The film won Saturn Awards for Best Actor, Best Director, Best Fantasy Film, Best Special Effects, and Best Writer hile being nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best Music. It was nominated for two British Academy Film Awards for Special Visual Effects and Sound, but lost to The Day After Tomorrow and Ray, respectively. The AFI listed the film as one of the 2004's ten best films, and nominated it for positions on the lists of the top 10 fantasy films, the 100 most inspiring American films, and the 100 greatest American films. Legacy Despite the many comic book super-hero movies which have followed it, Spider-Man 2 still regularly tops rankings as one of the best-loved of the genre. In 2012, Ask Men wrote, "This is the high-water mark for Spider-Man movies and good luck to anyone who wants to top it." In 2013, Screen Crush wrote, {{quote|Sam Raimi's second outing with the web-slinging hero is as perfect as superhero movies get, nailing everything that's great about its hero without sacrificing the unique tone established by the first film. How exactly does Raimi pull off a movie that's simultaneously goofy, melancholy, romantic, frightening, melodramatic, crazily intense and emotionally fulfilling? Some kind of cinematic alchemy, apparently. Forbes described it as "Not just one of the greatest sequels, but one of the best films of the genre, period." In 2014, Yahoo! Movies wrote, "Raimi's best superhero movie still takes the cake", and in 2018, Film School Rejects called it "the best summer movie ever" and said that its "emotional and calculated story stands above modern summer flicks" like those of The Avengers and The Dark Knight. A scene at the beginning of the film, where Peter delivers pizza to a patron, followed by the line "pizza time", has since become a popular internet meme. Video game To coincide with the film's release, a video game of the same name was released for the Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2 and Xbox on June 28, 2004. Releases on the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS systems would follow. An action-adventure video game, it serves as a follow-up to the Spider-Man: The Movie (2002). Published by Activision, the console versions were developed by Treyarch, but the other versions had different developers. The console versions of Spider-Man 2 were well received, with the exception of the PC/Mac version. Upon launch, the game had shipped more than 2 million units in North America by July 7, 2004.